How do I correctly require @polkadot/api and @polkadot/api-contract without causing a conflict?

Question

I have this in my single Javascript client.js that I am going to run with node. It's just the single file; was not created as a node project. (no npm init):

const { WsProvider, ApiPromise } = require('@polkadot/api');
const { ContractPromise } = require('@polkadot/api-contract');

When I attemp to run it, I get (just a sample of a long list):

@polkadot/util has multiple versions, ensure that there is only one installed.
Either remove and explicitly install matching versions or dedupe using your package manager.
The following conflicting packages were found:
        cjs 10.1.1      node_modules/@polkadot/api/node_modules/@polkadot/util/cjs
        cjs 10.1.2      node_modules/@polkadot/api-contract/node_modules/@polkadot/util/cjs
@polkadot/types has multiple versions, ensure that there is only one installed.
Either remove and explicitly install matching versions or dedupe using your package manager.
The following conflicting packages were found:
        cjs 8.14.1      node_modules/@polkadot/api/node_modules/@polkadot/types/cjs
        cjs 9.0.1       node_modules/@polkadot/api-contract/node_modules/@polkadot/types/cjs

I originally installed all npm packages "globally" ($HOME/.nvm/versions/node/blahblah...) because I didn't want a bunch of repeated node_modules all over the place.

And I did a symbolic link from the (above) global location to wherever my client.js was.

I also didn't want to have to mess with package.json etc.. just keep things as simple as possible. One file.

And it all worked until now.

Answer 1

I had to go ahead and do an npm init in the location of my client.js, then npm install @polkadot/api@latest @polkadot/api-contract@latest in same location, then npm dedupe @polkadot/api@latest @polkadot/api-contract@latest.

Now no conflicts.

Answer 2

I believe you originally had different versions of each package. All variants of @polkadot/<package> typically have the same version. @latest forced all of those to be the same and therefore no longer collide